Joint-Stock Company in Poland
Under Polish Law, Joint-Stock Company is a capital company and is fully available to foreigners. As a capital company it has a legal personality. It can be established by one or more individual or a legal persons, with a stipulation that a sole shareholder limited liability company may not establish a joint stock company. There are several forms of business activity for which the joint stock company is a formal requirement to conduct such an activity or obtain a proper an authorization.
In order to establish joint stock company signing the deed of establishment of the company and a statute as a notarial deed is required. The minimum share capital for establishing a joint stock company is 100,000 PLN. Later after the contributions to share capital are made and Management Board and Supervisory Board are established the company needs to be entered into the National Court Register. Nominal value of share may not be lower than 1 grosz (01/00 of 1 PLN). The shareholders are not liable for company's debts and obligations.
Joint stock company is advised for persons or entities, who plan to conduct a large scale business activity and plan or do not exclude the possibility of issuing shares as a way of obtaining capital.
Due to the presence of shares, the company formation process is very formal and for the draft of Statute legal advise is recommended.
The bodies of the company consist of the General Assembly, Management Board and Supervisory Board.
Joint stock company is rather expensive in operation due to lots of formalities like frequent requirement of notarial deed form. However it offers, a lot of possibilities with regards to obtaining capital and further company development (for instance stock exchange debut). In addition the minimum share capital requirement for establishing a joint stock company was reduced from 500,000 PLN to 100,000 PLN which considerably reduced the overall cost of establishing.